Dear Editor,

A week ago, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Geordin Hill-Lewis asked president Ramaphosa to reshuffle key DA members of the national cabinet. Over the weekend, the president was reported to have said that “ministers are appointees of the president… only the president can appoint ministers, finish and klaar.” Was the president channelling the late National Commissioner of Police, Jackie Selebi, with his colourful choice of phrase in two official languages?

“Finish and klaar” is the infamous phrase former South African Police Commissioner and Interpol head, Jackie Selebi, used in 2007 to defend his close friendship with convicted drug trafficker and smuggler Glenn Agliotti. Those words were uttered before Selebi was convicted for having a corrupt relationship with his friend Agliotti, following a thorough Scorpions led investigation (remember those days?) which Selebi unsuccessfully attempted to thwart with some assistance from the Mbeki-led cabinet (as then chief prosecutor Vusi Pikoli remembers).

The phrase has since become synonymous with arrogance, corruption, and the ultimate fall from grace of South Africa’s only head of Interpol, a prestigious appointment Selebi secured before his corruption was exposed and he was tried and punished severely for it (remember when corrupt bigwigs went down bigtime on corruption charges?)

While it may be so that cabinet positions are usually and constitutionally in the gift of the president, with the advent of coalition politics in national government in SA it is advisable, and indeed often necessary, to accommodate one’s coalition partners’ preferences for cabinet positions on pain of rendering the coalition “finish and klaar”, (to coin a phrase).

Yours in accountability,

Paul Hoffman SC